This is for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning.

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Monday, October 27, 2014

Since No Child Left Behind was
implemented and schools across the country were held hostage to unreasonable
goals, punished for educating low achieving students, and besieged with an
alarming increase of high stakes standardized testing, parents, teachers, and
students have been fighting back. Unfortunately President Obama and his
administration doubled down on the false narratives set by NCLB with Race to
the Top which increased testing and evaluating teachers based on those tests,
also known as value-added measures.
Nonetheless, those of us who know that high stakes testing is not a
valid measure of a student’s academic achievement or a reliable measure of a
teacher’s effectiveness, continue to fight back against these dangerous
policies that have created an atmosphere of blame, punishment, and failure. United Opt
Out (UOO) is a grassroots national organization formed in 2011to lead the
fight to resist high stakes standardized testing. The mission of UOO is “to
strengthen public education; fight corporate based reforms . . . and, in
particular, to end the practice of punitive, high-stakes [testing] and related
activities that are fraudulently being used as ‘proof’ of the incompetence of
public education/ teachers [and schools].”

UOO
has encouraged parents to opt their children out of high stakes standardized
testing in an effort to deny the corporate model of education reform the data
they need to profit off our children’s education. Parents have a right to say no to policies
and practices that they believe are unethical and harmful to their children.
Although many states and education leaders claim that opting out is not legal,
UOO has developed state guides that inform parents of their right to opt out is
indeed a recognized right for parents to have control over the education of
their children. UOO also instructs parents on how to inform the principal at
their child’s school that they will be opting out of high stakes testing. Some parents have felt resistance and have
been scared into thinking that if they opt their child out it will have a
negative effect on their school but to date that has not happened and thousands
of parents across the country have been successful in opting their child out of
high stakes standardized tests, field testing, and testing used to evaluate
teachers.

Parents
are our first line of defense when it comes to opting out because unlike
teachers they cannot be fired for their decision. However, teachers are
increasingly choosing not to administer tests that they know are harmful to
their children. In
January 2013, teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle Washington voted
not to administer the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test to their
students. The teachers argued that the tests lacked any significant value
because they were not aligned to the state standards. Superintendent Jose Banda
threatened to suspend any teacher who did not administer the test but after
receiving numerous emails and calls of support from parents he backed down and
the teachers were not punished for their actions.

In
February 2014 both Drummond
Elementary School and Saucedo Elementary School boycotted the Illinois Standard
Achievement Test (ISAT). Parents, students, and teachers were also
threatened with dire consequences if they went through with the boycott but
they refused to back down. As the opt out movement continued to grow, President
Obama continued to pay lip service to the concerns of parents, teachers, and
students about the alarming increase of high stakes testing. During his State
of the Union Address in 2012 he called for an end to teaching to the test and
this past month he issued a statement that appeared to be a call to reduce the
escalation of high stakes testing. The
Christian Science Monitor writes that President Obama said, “I have
directed [Education Secretary Arne] Duncan to support states and school
districts in the effort to improve assessment of student learning so that
parents and teachers have the information they need, that classroom time is
used wisely, and assessments are one part of fair evaluation of teachers and
accountability for schools,” in a statement on Wednesday October 15, 2014.

Two
days letter Secretary of Education Arne Duncan writes an article for the
Washington Post where he claims to support the cutback in testing but continues
to argue that tests are the best ways for parents to know how their students
are performing. Dr.
Yohuru Williams, a professor and education activist reminds us that these
words are not surprising given that we are in an election year and that we
should not be fooled into thinking that the Obama Administration is going to
back down from the mantra of high stakes testing. Despite the continued rhetoric that does not
correspond to real action from our supposed education leaders, teachers,
parents, and students continue to fight back and say no to corporate education
reforms that seek to privatize public education.

Last
month, kindergarten
teacher Susan Bowles from Gainesville, Florida issued a statement to the
parents of her students that explained why she would not be administering the
Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading (FAIR) tests. Citing her ethical
concerns that administering a test for six weeks to kindergarten children was
not something she could do in good conscience she risked being fired to do what
she felt was right. In response Florida
education officials have dropped the FAIR test for kindergarten students
throughout the state. A small step but immensely important victory for the opt
out movement.

Following
closely in Bowles steps, Peggy Robertson, an administrator for UOO and a
teacher in Aurora Colorado also issued
a letter stating that she refuses to administer the Partnership for
Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test, a new test
aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). She argued that the tests along with the CCSS
“have placed unrealistic expectations on our youngest learners, many who now
view themselves as failures because they are unable to meet the developmentally
inappropriate expectations set by the . . . standards.” UOO next issued
a plea for unions to support teachers who refuse to administer the test.
When asked by Washington
Post reporter Valerie Strauss if they would support teachers who refused to
administer the test both NEA and AFT said they would support teachers who did
not administer the test but failed to elaborate on what kind of support they
would issue.

So
what should be our next move? We know we cannot wait for the Secretary of Education
to follow up his claims with tangible actions that actually reduce or eliminate
our national reliance on high stakes standardized testing. And we know that we
cannot continue to allow our children to be over-tested and turned into data
points instead of human beings who are entitled to a high quality public
education. So we must continue to fight.
But we need to be strategic in how we fight. The unions say they will support
teachers but what will that support look like and will it be enough? The only
way to know for sure is for more teachers to refuse to administer the test. If teachers
are disciplined for their refusal then we will demand that the unions offer the
support they promised.

Now we understand
that every teacher is not in a position to risk losing his or her job. Many
teachers work in right-to-work states and have zero protections including
tenure and the right to due process. And although the unions claim they will
support teachers who refuse to administer tests we do not know what this
support will look like and if it will keep teachers from losing their jobs or
being disciplined. So we are looking for
teachers who are preparing to retire or leave the profession and are willing to
risk retaliation if they refuse to administer the test. If the teacher is
disciplined or fired for their actions we will reach out to their union leaders
to demand the support and advocacy they said would be there. Then we will know just how far the unions are
willing to go to support teachers.
Therefore, if you are willing and able to refuse to administer high
stakes standardized tests, which are not a valid and reliable measure of
student’s ability and promise, please write and publish a letter stating your
intentions. Send a copy to info@unitedoptout.com so we can keep
track of your situation. Together we can deny the corporate reformers the data
they so desperately need and drive out the testing insanity that has dismantled
our public education system.

To learn more
about how you can actively fight back against corporate education reforms,
please join United Opt Out at their Standing Up for Action Spring Event January
16-18th at the Broward County Convention Center in Ft. Lauderdale
Florida. In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, UOO is hosting an event that
brings advocates for public education together to form plans of actions. For more information and to register visit
our Eventbrite
page.

Denisha Jones is a professor in the School of Education at Howard University. She is former kindergarten teacher and preschool director. She is an admin for the Badass Teachers Association and United Opt Out.

1 comment:

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